"The damage caused by tracheal mites has eclipsed all other bee-keeping problems in the area where I live," says Kirk Webster, "Honey Bee Breeding in the Northeast--Starting Again," American Bee Journal, p. 20, Jan., 1991. "Despite treating . . . with menthol, half of my colonies were either dead or had clusters of insignificant size by the first week of May last spring" Ibid., p. 20. Mr. Webster's plea is for selective bee breeding to be conducted to obtain bees which can thrive even when affected with tracheal mites, because the use of chemicals to treat mites in bees can easily backfire and destroy the honey market, a market in which quality and purity are of the utmost importance.
Mr. Webster is not alone in his appreciation of the urgent bee-keeping problem of tracheal mite infestation. Honeybees throughout the United States, particularly in the Northeastern United States, are being infested with the parasitic mite Acarapis woodi Rennie that has already killed millions of honeybees and is threatening to kill millions if not billions more. Alarmingly, in 1989 bee u keepers lost up to 80% of their colonies to tracheal mites (Moses, L., "Tracheal Mite Hurts Bee Keeping," Fruit Grower, Mar., 1990, p. 9). Other types of mites are starting to appear also. Moreover, fruit and vegetable growers are beginning to come forward in increasing numbers to point out that their crops are suffering from a lack of pollinators (honeybees).
Chemical treatments intended to combat tracheal mite infestation in bees have been attempted, but the results have generally been unsatisfactory. Menthol treatment, in particular, has been widely attempted to combat Acarapis woodi Rennie infestation, but the effects have been limited and even in small quantities menthol contamination of bee hives produces commercially unacceptable honey products. For reasons of honey contamination and also other ecological reasons, the use of chemicals less "natural" than menthol has an even worse chance of success. Other than chemical treatment, those skilled in the art have tried only the use of the selective breeding discussed by Mr. Webster as a means to cope with a problem which will otherwise soon decimate North America's bees.
Ideally, a solution to the tracheal mite problem in bees would be a bee-treating method in which no chemicals were used and nothing complicated along the lines of selective breeding would be required.